Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto proposed a reform on Tuesday that would authorize foreign immigration and customs agents to carry arms while in the country, an issue that has long been a source of friction with the United States.

In 2011, an unarmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed when his car was ambushed by drug gang members in central Mexico.

From the Oscars in Hollywood, to the pope in Rome, Mexico is receiving some rather unflattering attention, a reversal of the image that the government has spent millions to cultivate.

It started as a celebration of Mexicanness, with Academy Award glory being heaped on Mexican director Alejandro G. Iñarritu, who took three Oscar statuettes in Sunday night’s ceremony. It turned when he made a plea for better treatment of Mexican immigrants and took a sharp dig at President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Lots has been written about diversity in the US film industry after last night’s Oscars – but across the border in Mexico, the ceremony set off a very different political storm.

After his film Birdman won best picture last night, Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu took the stage. “I want to dedicate this award to my fellow Mexicans, the ones who live in Mexico,” he said. “I pray that we can build the government that we deserve.”

Mexico City (AFP) – The Mexican government on Tuesday lamented a US judge’s decision to block an immigration order by President Barack Obama that would have protected millions of undocumented workers from deportation.

“These programs are a fair migration remedy for millions of families and could strengthen the contributions of Mexican migrants to the US economy and society,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Record numbers of women and children fleeing violence and poverty in Central America were deported by Mexican authorities last year, as part of US-driven operations to stem the flow of migrants reaching the American border.

More than 24,000 women were deported from Mexico in 2014 – double the number sent home in 2013. The upsurge in child detentions was even sharper – climbing 230% to just over 23,000, Mexican interior ministry figures reveal…

Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Centre, said: “Mexico knows the southern border is the biggest weakest spot of the country where it is most vulnerable to organised crime, undocumented migration and non-traditional threats like infectious diseases. The Peña Nieto government is trying to get a handle on it and reassert sovereignty. The US has offered help with great gusto.”

For much of President Barack Obama’s time in office, he has been accused of ignoring his southern neighbors. Drawing down military involvement in the Middle East, along with continued crises in other areas of the world, has resulted in little public attention paid to Latin America for the past six years…

On the eve of formal talks between the two countries [Cuba and U.S.] beginning with a focus on migration policies, Obama was careful not to delve too much into the details of what normalization would look like. While much still needs to be decided, normalization of relations has the potential to be a huge part of Obama’s foreign policy legacy and his State of the Union address referenced this policy without risking the possibility of upsetting the start of talks…

While that approach can be seen as pragmatic, what was more surprising was the way the rest of the speech failed to address any other country in the region. In the past year, a number of major shifts have occurred in Latin America, but Obama did not touch upon any of them.

One the greatest omissions was perhaps Mexico. The past year has seen major upheavals in the country, particularly regarding the distrust between the Mexican state and its people. This past week, another scandal broke to further degrade this relationship when it was revealed that President Enrique Peña Nieto had bought his home in a resort town from the same developer that subsequently won billions of dollars in government contracts.

Pope Francis told a group of reporters Monday that he doesn’t plan to travel to Mexico this year.

But next time he does visit, the pope raised the possibility of walking across the U.S.-Mexico border to show support for immigrants, according to a report from Spanish newswire EFE.

“To enter the United States from the border with Mexico would be a beautiful gesture of brotherhood and support for immigrants,” Francis told reporters aboard the papal airplane returning to Rome from the Philippines.